By Force Alone

by Lavie Tidhar

Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke. —Aristophanes of Athens (431 BC)

In this Britannia, first you get the money, then you get the power, then you get the women—this is what they say, and laugh, and dream of big-bosomed girls

“I try not to miss things in the past. It’s a place you can’t get back to.”

A sword is wielded, and it has one use. And war is but the use of violence in service of the state.

You mustn’t underestimate the power of this new church out of Rome. They have their own fanatics, worse than druids, and they’re as fond of a sword as any greedy knight.